Use feed efficiency as a cost-control measure and monitor

Feed efficiency is more than a ratio. Used properly, it can tell you whether cows are performing to their potential and if your herd management is allowing them to do so.

"Milk comes from a cow-friendly environment and management. So does feed efficiency," says Jim Barmore, a dairy nutritionist and management consultant based in Verona, Wis. "But we have to move beyond feed efficiency as just being a ratio and move to the dollars and sense of that ratio."

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Feed efficiency ratios can alert you to when things go wrong. "If the ration is solid and it predicts that cows should be milking 90 lb. and they’re not, something is wrong. Is it cow comfort, heat abatement, reproduction and days in milk, forage quality and consistency, or feeding management consistency?" he asks.

The economic stakes are huge. Barmore uses two herds as an example. In Herd 1, cows average 94 lb. of 3.5% milk per day and consume 59 lb. of feed dry matter. Their fat-corrected milk:feed efficiency (FCMFE) is 1.59.

If the ration costs 14¢ per pound of dry matter and the milk is $19 per cwt. at 3.5% fat, Herd 1’s income over feed cost (IOFC) is $9.60 per cow per day. Herd 2’s IOFC is $8.36 per cow per day.

Factor that for a 1,200-cow herd, and Herd 1 has a $543,120 IOFC advantage compared with Herd 2. About $122,000 of that is the value of the 5% better feed efficiency, Barmore explains.

Farm-level feed efficiency is more than dry-matter intake. It’s all feed disappearance—from shrink, fermentation, throw-away from spoiled or uneaten feed, and dry-matter intake. You should also only count milk sold, since it is the only milk you’re paid for, he says.